written by Wolfgang Christian and Francisco Esquembre

The Flat Mirror Model shows two principal rays leaving a candle of height h and striking a flat mirror.  The first ray is parallel to the mirror surface and is reflected back on itself.  The second ray strikes the mirror a distance h below the flame.  The angle between the reflected ray and the surface normal is the same as that between the incident ray and the normal in accord with the principles of geometric optics.  If the reflected rays are extended behind the mirror, the location of the virtual image is observed.

The Flat Mirror Model was developed using the Easy Java Simulations (EJS) modeling tool.  It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive.   Double clicking the jar file will run the program if Java is installed.  You can modify this simulation if you have EJS installed by right-clicking within the map and selecting "Open Ejs Model" from the pop-up menu item.

• Download ejs_optics_FlatMirror.jar - 2003kb Java Archive File

Last Modified June 6, 2014

This file has previous versions.

The source code zip archive contains an EJS-XML representation of the Flat Mirror Model.   Unzip this archive in your EJS workspace to compile and run this model using EJS.

• Download ejs_optics_FlatMirror.zip - 18kb Compressed File

Last Modified April 12, 2012